A New Year in Mullett Township and more of the same old at the Mullett Township Board meeting held at 8 Pm on January 3, 2012. As we await approved Meeting Minutes, here is a quick editorial on the first meeting of the calendar year.
This blog coordinator asked the Board why?
Why had they publicly voted to cap a USDOT Tiger III Grant application at $1.2 million dollars, that’s $1,200, 000.00 with a local $200,000 match, and then allowed Ms Karyn Warsow and the Topinabee Development Association (TDA) to submit the original, unaltered grant in the amount of $1,592,926 with a match of $318,585?
That is a big-big difference. Supervisor Bill Morgan attempted to answer in his best double talk, well, things came up and I’ll have to take the political hit on that, yada, yada ad-infinitum. He said nothing that even warrants quotation marks. It makes no difference that the Tiger III Grants have now already been all allocated to more legit purposes. Our Mullett Township Board is participating in fraudulent applications to federal agencies.
The only difference between these lies and the person who lies on a welfare application is the amount of money sought by fraud. In an attempt to defend the action, Mr Tom O’Hare stood and restated the Resolution previously passed by the Board endorsing the TDA’s efforts to secure grants on behalf of Mullett Township. The Resolution should not be a license to fabricate applications for grants with amounts and terms that Mullett Township has not approved or cannot afford.
With this smell still hanging in the air, Trustee John Brown stated he was offended, and rightfully so, having received information second hand and after the fact that the dynamic duo of Ms Karyn Warsow and the Topinabee Development Association had already, in December, submitted another rush-rush, or as Mr O’Hare stated, “late to the game” federal grant application.
Trustee Brown was advised by a forwarded email on January 1, 2012 that the TDA had submitted in December, another $1,592,926 grant application with a $318,585 match using the “tweaked” Tiger III Grant application.
The Federal Highway Administration administers a Discretionary Grant Program for a range of very narrowly focused grants.
Here is a link to the site- http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/discretionary/
Please judge for yourself if two blocks of M27 streetscape fit any of the stated criteria.
As we do not live in the delta, have a ferry, interstate highway, covered bridge, railway crossing, live on a scenic byway, or need truck parking, I can see absolutely no criteria we can meet to even be considered for a Discretionary Grant.
Nevertheless, our fearless leaders, coached by ex-CEO Tom O’Hare to spend money they do not have, passed a roll call vote to submit an application, after it had already been submitted, with a match capped at $150,000. We already know the Mullett Township definition of “capped” is a moving target.
All of these grants are funded at the 80% rate and this would secure a grant with a total not exceeding $750,000. That is less than half of the proposed Tiger III Grant project cost.
Our township Board is wasting the precious little time they have left; chasing pie-in-the-sky dreams, attaching their names to fraudulent documents being submitted to federal agencies, and still allowing themselves to be duped by special interest groups.
Oh, by the way, Trustee John Brown had the cojunes to vote no on this grant application. The rest should grow a pair.
